A22-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 15.2001
Craig enjoys spending much of her time in the barn, pasture, or training the horses. At
Country Arabians, 11 Arabians and one Haflinger make their home on the farm.
Arabians
(Continued from Page A 1)
ino, crossed with an Arabian
stallion, produced 19 foals in her
lifetime.
“Fate gave me a great mare.
I’m into the fifth generation of
her bloodlines,” she said.
Craig’s veterinarian, Richard
Stoneback, Oxford, owned Ara-
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bians and opened her eyes to the
breed after she purchased a
horse from him.
“One led to two and two led to
four,” she said. All the purebred
horses go back to the white mare
and all the partbred horses go
back to the Palomino. “It’s a
small line but very productive.
It’s all in the family, I guess,”
she said.
Craig has now raised approxi
mately 100 foals on the farm.
“I’ve sold several to good
friends and its fun to go to shows
and watch them.”
Several of the horses who “de
serve a retirement home,” she
said, will permanently reside at
Country Arabians. A 33-year
old gelding, for example, is al
lowed to wander the yard and
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“be our lawn mower” before he
is moved to the pasture in the af
ternoon.
“Arabians are good family
horses. They are friendly and in
quisitive and quite personable,
but quite sensitive. They require
a lot more finesse in handling
them,” said Craig.
Her mother, Gladys, owns the
farm and her brother works the
80-cow dairy portion of the op
eration plus farms the cropland
of the 267-acre farm, which the
family moved to when Craig
was four years old. The horses
have the run of 20 acres of pas
tureland.
Show Season
Three-year-old Flag, who car
ried bis tail high when he was a
foal, earning himself the name,
was the show horse for the
season for Craig.
“He is the first one I’ve shown
as a 3-year-old,” she said. “He
has a trusting personality and is
tall and bold and can handle the
environment. I’ve always en
joyed working with him.”
Late fall of last year Craig
began working with Flag, train
ing him nearly every day for the
show ring. “I usually pick one
horse arid show it through the
entire season until I retire that
one and show another,” she
said.
“I used to show a purebred
and a partbred at one time,” she
added, “and I showed one until
he was 22 years old.”
The show season, which
begins in April with a show in
Bel Air, Md., ends in Harrisburg
at the Keystone International
Livestock Exposition (KILE).
Craig mainly exhibits in Penn
sylvania and neighboring states.
Three class A shows and five
weekend circuit shows make a
total of eight shows for Craig.
The International Arabian
Horse Association rates' the
shows, and only experienced
riders who have met certain
qualifications may compete in
the Class A shows. Winning
riders accumulate points at
shows to earn a berth at the na
tional competition, which alter
nates locations.
Providing an alternative to
the Class A shows, however, is
the Eastern Amateur Arabian
Horse Show Circuit, an organi
zation Craig helped to found in
1976 with Stoneback. The shows
are low-key and family oriented,
according to Craig, since “the
founders wanted an organiza
tion where families could show
together.”
Jumping is also a part of the Battle of the Breeds compe
iltlon.
“It was just a sitting-around
the-kitchen-table idea that
grew,” she said. “We had close
to 200 members this year.”
Originating in nearby Oxford,
the group now includes mem
bers in Maryland and Virginia.
Each region conducts its own
show. “The furthest we travel is
two and a half hours,” she said.
The central club picked a list
of 45 classes that each show
should include. At the end of the
year the high point award is
given to a horse for the separate
divisions.
Awards for the junior riders
also help to promote future in
terest in the competition. The
top point earner wins the horse
of the year distinction, an honor
Craig has won in the club since
19%.
Although registries for pure
bred and partbred Arabians are
separated, the horses are al
lowed to compete together in the
amateur circuit.
To learn the ins and outs of
horse ownership and show com
petition, Craig, who never took
any riding lessons, took the
burden of her education upon
herself.
“I learned by trial and error. I
watched other people ride and
saw what the horse was sup
posed to look like, then I’d go
home and try to make my horse
do it,” she said.
Reading magazines also gave
her training ideas. “If I didn’t
like it, I just found something
else,” she said. “I saw what the
judges wanted and I’d go home
and try to get the horses to go
that way.”
Craig not only rides her own
horses in competition, she also
shoes and fits them for the ring
herself.
In Training
Careful, methodical training
is the reason for her show ring
success bellevesCfalg. 1
'To take raw talent and turn
it into a good show horse, a good
working partner, is quite re
warding,” she said. Craig also>
believes another -reason her
horses are successful in the shoW
ring is “because of their I ’good
manners, one of my fundamen
tal things U» training.” ' 1
Craig trains aH-'of her horses
by herself, in'additioft to taking
care of -the 'aftbhals. Reading
bo4ks and observing others at
shows helped to educate htr on
how to tram animals. Also she is
blessed by good-tempered ani
mals, “which i raised from day
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